But isn't it fruitless to remove less harmful spyware, such as tracking cookies, if visiting any website is going to dump them on you again? That is, after I run a scan and remove spyware, I'm immediately re-infected as soon as I visit Yahoo, Facebook, etc.

Maybe the point is to not worry about tracking cookies and instead hope the anti-spyware removes the more viscious stuff?

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Well it all depends on your level of comfort and privacy - in earlier internet days, tracing cookies were used to know whether you had been to the site before and what sites you may be on. Now they're being used to track your behavior, interests and even your specific demographics (e.g., your gender, age, location, health issues, financial information).

Yes cookies will still be added to your computer when you next browse, but if you're using a modern browser like Firefox/Chrome, there are settings you can enable ("Do Not Track") that will prevent the legitimate sites from tracking you in this way. You can also block third-party cookies - meaning that if a site runs ads (which are hosted on another website), they will be blocked.

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